BP pension scheme have sold a portfolio of 16 industrial properties for £35m to clients of Mercury Asset Management.
The package consists of warehouses and industrial estates, 1.25m sq ft in total, located throughout the South East of England, from Milton Keynes, Welwyn Garden City and Cambridge in the north, to Egham, Frimley, Chandlers Ford and Swindon in the south and west.
Tenants include Nestle, Philips Electronics, and Marconi, and the total income from the properties is around £3m pa. BP’s trustee, Ropemaker Properties, put the portfolio on the market just at the time of the stock market collapse last October.
Debenham Tewson & Chinnocks, who advised BP on the sale, think the transaction “is notable for being an industrial property portfolio of significant size whose marketing ran the full length of the storm in the equities market and proves conclusively the return of institutional investors to the property sector”.
Hillier Parker, who acted for MAM, call it “a well-balanced industrial and warehouse portfolio at a sensible yield”.
